


oh, stay, stay

by Anonymous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wildlife Biologists, Fluff, Karasuno Bird Sanctuary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23405734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: From the first of Kageyama Tobio's field journals two facts stand out:Though they may be separated for months and months on end, king penguins always return to their mate.Tsukishima Kei is a jerk.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 2
Kudos: 77
Collections: Anonymous, Valentine's Day Lockers 2020





	oh, stay, stay

**Author's Note:**

> Slides you this note in your locker! I don't know much about farms but please lemme serve up some animals of another sort instead. I just love bird team very, very much, so here's a bunch of birds.

“What is this for?”

Tsukishima is scowling — at the little fuzzy penguin toy in his hands, at his shoulder bag, at _him_. Kageyama can feel a scowl setting in between his own brows, mirroring.

“I said, it's yours! For you!” Kageyama grits his teeth. Why did Tsukishima always have to be so difficult. “Thank you for—”

“Stop right there, King.” Tsukishima reaches long fingers into Kageyama’s shoulder bag and deftly pulls out a field journal. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. It’s taken Kageyama years and years of this to know it means there’s something like a smile behind it. “I need to take notes.”

“Thank you for your help with my research,” Kageyama continues. He’s unable to bow with the stuffed animal in his hands, but it lets him look Tsukishima full in the face, lets him watch the early morning light soften on that familiar pale cheek. He’s going to miss this.

His chest pinches with the sudden knowledge of it. I’m going to miss _him_ , Kageyama thinks.

“I’m going to miss you,” Kageyama says.

The blank pages of the journal smell like cotton under Tsukishima’s fingers. It had been a gift from Tsukishima, left on Kageyama’s pillow last week when they had gotten the news that Kageyama’s grant had been finally approved — an entire season at the Japanese Antarctic Research Station, chasing after his dream of a seemingly impossible king penguin migration route.

“Too good for the rest of us at this little bird rescue, aren’t you,” Tsukishima had said, fingers twisted around the pail of fish as he had watched Kageyama zip himself up into his wetsuit for feeding time. There had been a penguin who had a broken beak that he needed to feed by hand. Tsukishima always hated getting into the tank. Kageyama had taken to it like he was born to it. They were— perfect, like this, in their own way.

 _You could come with me_ , Kageyama didn’t say. Tsukishima’s fingers were cold, he was always cold, but they had held onto the thin metal of the pail a little longer than usual, brushing against the back of Kageyama's hand, and all of his words had gotten stuck in his throat again. Unable to swallow them down, unable to cough them up. A clumsy bird who had tried to take too much too fast. For one frozen moment, Kageyama thinks maybe Tsukishima will slap him on the back and make him give it all up to him.

But Tsukishima had just turned that pale cheek to him and smirked like he already had all the answers. “Maybe being pushed out of the nest will finally help you fly like the rest of us.”

“Penguins don't fly,” Kageyama had replied, toes dipping into the tank. Cold water had sent shivers up his spine but he remembers most the press of Tsukishima's cold fingers against his skin, had remembered the way the feel of them had somehow cut through it all anyway, and something warm and wonderful had fluttered in his chest.

“Always so gentle with the birds.” Tsukishima's feet had dangled over the tank, not quite touching the surface. “It's like you're one of them. Just a tall king penguin ruling like a tyrant over all the other birds. Waddling around like an idiot on land.” Cold water had bitten at his too tight wetsuit. Tsukishima's eyes had followed him as he cradled a fluffy chick against his chest, fed it by hand to make sure it eats properly. Pale cheeks had flushed pink in the cold air of the enclosure and Kageyama had wondered— what would happen if he splashed water over Tsukishima's feet? Would he flush pink along those pale ankles, too? Flush pink all the way down his throat like plumage shaken out in surprise?

“I'm.” Kageyama had felt himself flush instead. “Not an idiot!” It had come out like a whip.

“Seems like you speak better penguin than you do Japanese,” Tsukishima had said, and had snickered a quiet little laugh, and that had done something unthinkable inside of Kageyama's chest, too. “But maybe I'm the idiot for speaking penguin here with you.”

“I like the way you are with the birds.” It's all Kageyama could think to say at the time.

“You would of course, King.” And then Tsukishima had dipped a toe into the cold water, eyes shining and looking down at Kageyama. The penguin chick had made an affronted noise in Kageyama's arms and fluffed up even more. A little bit of fish had gotten tossed against Kageyama's chest. Everything had smelled of the briny air and rumbled with the water filters and when Tsukshima had laughed, really laughed, like something sparkling over the water, toe splashing cold tank water at Kageyama, he had thought:

_This is the place I can return to one day._

“What are you writing?” Kageyama asks.

“Just getting you started, King.” Tsukishima's penmanship is neat and quick. He's always been good at things like this, in the same way that Kageyama wasn’t. “Wouldn't want you embarrassing the Karasuno bird sanctuary when they find out your notes are like a child's scribbles.”

Kageyama leans in. Cold fingers, but Tsukishima's shoulder is warm against his. He wonders how cold the winters on the Antarctic shelf will be and if they will remind him of home, like this, or just make him ache for something that he doesn't know how to carry with him. 

“That's—”

“It's instructions on how to take the train from the airport back to the our apartment.”

“I know how to get home!”

“Do you? Need I remind you of our fourth year of university when I had to tutor you in basic Japanese just so you could write your thesis,” Tsukishima snickers. He taps the pen against the paper. “What's this say?”

The kanji is an easy one and Kageyama feels his mouth pull. “I know that one. It means king.”

“Good. So you'll remember this then, too.” Tsukishima's hand flits over the page. The ink of his pen doesn't smudge. It's something that Kageyama will remember much, much later, under the white Antarctic sun, under the white moving shadows of the ice shelf. How neat and clean Tsukishima always held himself, how quick he was to always cut to the core. But maybe sometimes that wasn't such a bad thing.

“King penguins always return to their—” Kageyama squints. “I don't know what that English means.”

“You'll figure it out,” Tsukishima says. “And I won't miss you.”

The sun moves and casts a shadow over Tsukishima's cheek. Kageyama wraps his fingers around Tsukishima's wrist, and Tsukishima lets him, and Kageyama's pulse is beating so hotly he thinks he'll leave a mark right there on the skin.

“I'll figure it out, Kei.”

**Author's Note:**

> They'll be fine.
> 
> [You took the time to memorise me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsqpA5a5No8)


End file.
